Senior Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis has urged the government to ensure it has a robust legal basis before proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, warning that a failed court challenge would do lasting damage.
“I must say that I am very surprised that the Home Secretary chose to put out a written statement, rather than making an oral statement, when we could have put to her some of these points about what exactly qualifies a group to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation,” said Lewis, the former chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee.
While he agreed that the recent incident at RAF Brize Norton constituted “sabotage” and “criminal damage,” Lewis highlighted the legal complexity of proscription.
“It would do the country and the Government no favours if they were to lose in court a challenge to the process of proscription,” he told the Commons. “Whereas the secret sabotage of planes would certainly have been an act of terrorism… this was a performative act that these people announced they had done.”
“My advice to the Government is to make sure, when these people are prosecuted, that it is not solely on the grounds of committing terrorist acts, rather than committing treasonous acts of sabotage.”
In response, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard said MPs would soon have a full opportunity to debate the decision in the House of Commons and emphasised the legal due diligence behind the move.
“The decision to proscribe has not been made without considerable thought, or without reflecting on the information in the public domain and information that perhaps is not, and that it was underpinned by a very serious legal process,” he said.
“There will be a full debate in this House in the coming days as part of the proscription process.”
No. If you break into a military site and takes action which results in the destruction of critical military equipment which has a significant impact on Defence of the Realm you get to experience eye-watering consequences.
He is of course correct. We may not be privy to all the information. However a judge will want to see it all and being proscribed rightly has a high bar set. This action is not dissimilar to another case in 2003 at RAF Fairford. In that case planes were damaged and graffiti sprayed in protest over the Iraq war. The group concerned were not proscribed but punished under normal criminal procedures. Junior counsel defending was one Keir Starmer. Who used the international law concept of ‘necessity’ as a defence.
Can’t you shut them down on the ground that their purpose is to teach, encourage and sponsor crime? If not conspiracy, actions intentionally causing a public nuisance or something?
I remember the Warton incident when a Quaker preacher tried to detach, I think, a Saudi fuel tank on a hawk becuase he thought it rhat was going to be used in Yemen. I don’t think he got jail time, I’m not sure.
“Whereas the secret sabotage of planes would certainly have been an act of terrorism… this was a performative act that these people announced they had done.”
What a profoundly misguided statement.. the very nature of “terrorism” is a performative act. Infact you cannot by definition perform a secret act of terrorism and a secret act of sabotage could not be defined as terrorists..because secret destruction cannot deliver on the UKs core definition of terrorism:
Terrorism is an action or threat designed to influence the government or intimidate the public. Its purpose is to advance a political, religious or ideological cause. The current UK definition of terrorism is given in the Terrorism Act 2006.
In the UK we define terrorism as a violent action that:
Endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action
Involves serious violence against a person
Causes serious damage to property
Creates a serious risk to the public’s health and safety
Interferes with or seriously disrupts an electronic system
Essentially and crudely
If I planted a bomb in a shop because I wanted to kill people or I hated the shop that is not terrorism.. if I planted that same bomb and then came out and told every I planted the bomb in the shop because it was opening on Sundays and I wanted to stop all shops opening on a Sunday..that is terrorism..
Essentially if they have undertaken significant damage and harm to further a political cause they are terrorists ( it’s pretty clear really).. now you may want to argue about the UK Definitions being to broad and a lot of it actually spins around what is the definition of serious….
So as they did this for political reasons, if they are terrorists or not is really now based around how much damage this organisation has done to properly and if it goes over the serious threshold..if it has they are terrorists as defined in terrorism act 2006… if it does not go over that legal threshold they are not…
He is right to sound caution, PA has already consulted their legal advisors.
Some of these activist groups have solid financial support. Legal support too.
They do- their funding can be traced back to Iran, ISIS, Taliban, Russia, China and North Korea- eg foreign sovereign states and terrorist groups.
They are hiding in the UK and abusing our freedoms and democracy assuming they are untouchable behind the UK law- they are not, PA are a terrorist group and should be treated as such. HMG should do a deep dive into their funding and publish the results.- i think then all the rats will leave the sinking ship and disappear PDQ under the rocks to hide their involvement.
Yep, MI5 should be involved in tracing the funding, cutting off, or confiscating where possible.
He is an apologist. Under his party’s government he allowed unfettered net migration of +4 million people. Uncontrolled and unvetted border controls have led to the situation we now have- the enemy potentially within.
Breaking into a military base with the expressed intent of destroying critical national defence resources is a terrorist action, it is entirely unacceptable for any organisation to hide behind the freedoms and democracy that living within the UK provides them to then attack that democracy, abuse those freedoms and to then attack the armed forces of the country. this is a terrorist act.
They attack the armed forces of the United Kingdom. They should be clearly labelled a prescribed terrorist organisation as an example to all “pressure”or “campaign groups” to clearly demark the boundary lines between pressure and political campaigning and the rule of law and respect for the nation and our way of life, our freedoms are precious and need to be respected and defended robustly.
Palestine action are a terrorist group, all their members should be hauled into a police station, charged with terrorism acts, thoroughly investigated and then either prosecuted under British law if a British citizen or deported immediately if not a British citizen. If those individuals don’t like that, well let that be a useful life lesson for them to respect British law, the British people, our armed forces and our culture and way of life.
I’ve already written to my MP asking for Palestine action group to be proscribed as a terrorist group, i did that immediately after their actions at Brize Norton. I also think a wider review of all these islamist related “Pressure” or campaign groups should be instigated and any that are calling for direct action that is against the law should be also proscribed as a terrorist group. Lots of these groups are funded through very shadowy routes and some of them can be traced back to Iran, North Korea, Russia and China, that much is certain.
The stupid lefties that are British citizens who join these groups are being used and are naïve to the risks and undermining nature of these groups.
Just don’t cock-up the process of proscribing PA.
And once you have, go after everyone who has ever been a member.
And one of the “Enemy within” a certain MP, is already tweeting that we are all Palestine Action.
If that is in reference to the group who have just sabotaged UK defence assets, she should be stripped.
If it’s a play on words, it’s cobblers.
Hang on a minute … who runs the country? Government, or lawyers? I always thought Governments debate and make the laws and the judges through the courts obeyed the edicts of the state; that’s why we call it a “Democracy” (for what it’s worth), not the other way around. Does this mean “a group of people” can carry out an act of terrorism, and get away with it in court so long as they film it and tell someone they’ve done it? Because that is the way a judge could look at this ruling no matter what the politicians decide. And we end up not being able to proscribe ANY terrorist group.
It seems more and more whichever Government is in power now has to bow down now in front of a panel of un-elected judges. I say: “Treason”, and “Bring back William Marwood”.
However – Brize should have been guarded better than this, it’s a sad reflection of cuts to our services. I remember a certain RAF base being attacked by the Marines one evening. The result, on the quiet? three broken fingers, a broken leg, several black eyes, a variety of minor cuts and bruises and abrasions on both sides. Good fun though!
Read between the lines. The left wing judiciary, perhaps a Muslim judge , mates with lord Hermer , will happily give the UK govt a bloody nose and grant an appeal.
Be in no doubt who you elected. A left wing lawyer sits as PM who lacks any desire to take blame. He will be against prescribing them, because he defended the same type of traitors.
He will ” accept ” any court ruling and fudge an apology and not answer any question, just as he did with “women” with cocks cocks and Muslim groomers.
The offence comes with a life sentence. Arrest the entire membership for conspiracy, get locate phone date, set the NCA on their Internet footprint and convict them.
Britain: where you can fly foreign flags but the national flag “may cause offence”; where you can break into military bases for foreign causes and Labour will protect you; where social media messages lead to a longer sentence than assault; where your right to protest is taken away if you are a British national, leaving riot as the only recourse, since you’re gonna go to prison anyway.